Building Better Teams to Improve Organisational Resilience
Summary
Organisational Resilience is an organisation’s ability to continuously achieve goals by simultaneously anticipating and preparing for disruption, an Anticipatory skill, whilst also responding to disruptions, which is an Adaptability skill. Organisations rely on teams to execute both skill sets to ensure they can withstand disruptions, maintain their operations and ultimately achieve continued success. In this paper, wee’ve combined what we know about building effective teams with the findings from recently published research, to help leaders, especially those working in Risk, to build better organisational resilience.
Ambidexterity Means Combining Anticipation and Adaption
Ambidextrous teams are able to build both types of resilience, displaying skills in both improvisation and rapid adaption to change as well as skills in being disciplined at executing risk management policies and practices. But this level of functionality is hard to come by. We know that 75% of teams are ‘mediocre performers at best’.
So organisations rely mainly on Risk functions to support the building of Anticipatory Resilience via systemic risk management practices such as structured planning; risk assessments; strong governance procedures and protocols, and frequent analysis. These enable teams throughout the business to identify vulnerabilities, assess risks and implement mitigation strategies, including scenario planning, risk assessment and the ability to implement mitigation strategies.
Adaptability Resilience is achieved when teams possess high capability to improvise in the here and now. Risk teams support this endeavour with creative problem-solving and flexible decision-making which help them adapt rapidly, change processes, resources, structures and strategies in response to changing environments. Both risk teams and those they collaborate with engage in creative, spontaneous responses to these threats.
Geographic Differences
Adaptive capabilities seem to matter more in Western organisations than anticipatory capabilities, exerting a stronger positive influence on resilience. Supported by our flatter management structures they support more creative problem solving, greater individual autonomy and better adaptability. With their less powerful hierarchies and informal networks, Western organisations are adept at finding quicker solutions to emerging threats than their Far Eastern counter parts.
In these organisations, it is the anticipative capabilities that predict stronger positive effects on resilience. The greater hierarchies and top down protocols in Eastern companies seemed to limit their improvisation capabilities, so in these geographies, focusing on more formal risk management procedures is the way to go.
Using the Fast Teaming Formula™
In the UK, it is particularly important to build higher pyschological safety in teams, which can be achieved via team routines that encourage vulnerability, empathy and learning conversations to take place. The safety built then fuels more creative and adaptable responses which are necessary for adaptive reslience. Clarity and alignment of team goals, roles, plans and governance helps too, but the onus is very much on leaders to set up routines with their teams to create these ‘safe’ and ‘learning’ cultures. In the UK then, where ambidextrous leadership proves too challenging, team leaders are advised to prioritise the building of psychological safety.
In the East, the pendulum swings much more to building loyalty, clarity and alignemnt
behind goals, roles, plans and following more formal meeting governance. In these coutnries, the emphasis is on helping team members to be more predictive, formulaic and respectful of protocols.
In all Geographies, Executive teams are advised to develop high performing Teams of Teams as in doing so, this will create higher levels of: trust; knowledge sharing; mutual support and continuous learning across their organisations, which will then naturally fuel both types of resilience. The resulting collaborations will then provide quick access to resources which can then be deployed where they are most needed. People teams, however, are advised to align reward systems and autonomy levels to suit each geography. In the UK it is better to reward more empowerment across teams, but in the East reward more discipline. Compliance teams are advised to by coaching and supporting teams across the organisation to develop both anticipatory and adaptive skills with the aim of improving overall ambidextrous competence . Even though for many, ambidextrosity will be a tough ask, we encourage compliance teams to aim high and be ambitious.
Key Takeaways
Organisational Resilience combines skills in anticipation and adaption.
Ambidextrous teams can excel at both, but such teams are uncommon.
In Western companies – investing resources to boost adaptive skills will provide more ‘bang for your buck’ than it will in Eastern companies, where investing in ancipatory resources will produce a better ROI.
Applying the Fast Teaming Formula™ helps leaders calculate that building higher levels of psychological safety will be more profitable in Western companies than in Eastern companies, where building clarity, unity and followship behind established protocols would be a more worthwile endeavour.
References:
Ref: Duchek, S. (2020). Organisaonal resilience: a capability-based conceptualasion.
Business research, 13(1), 215-246.